The bloke was in his early 20s and had a stripey t-shirt and a spotty red face. He swaggered out of the King's Head with his dog then watched, transfixed, as the dog did a big runny shit all over the pavement. He was about to swagger off in the direction of Finsbury Park when I announced that if everyone acted like him the whole world would be covered in dogshit. He looked at me in disbelief. How will I clear it up? he whined. I pointed to the paper bag he was holding, which contained a brand new tube of what I presume was acne cream. The dog looked up at his master as if to say "want me to bite his gonads, master?" but the bloke in the stripey t-shirt still seemed confused, as if he had never realised that leaving dogshit in the middle of the pavement was wrong. I left him standing over the pile of crap, wondering what to do, though my daughter informed me that as soon as my back was turned he had swaggered over to the bus stop as if nothing had happened.

While the numbers of Dog People frequenting Clissold Park has grown enormously over the past few years, one of the things that hasn't changed is their inability to 'see' normal humans. I have always been able to walk amongst them, seemingly invisible, without so much as a glance. I could have marched into the middle of a group of them and emptied a bag of Winalot on their heads and they wouldn't have noticed.

This week, because our neighbour is poorly, I've been walking her dog most days (breed? Er, it's a little brown dog that looks uncannily like Robin Smith the late Labour MP) and today we ventured into the park. I wasn't in twenty seconds when two Dog People approached me, smiling in a strange friendly way.

"Hello!" one of them said. Was she talking to me? I must have looked startled.

"He looks like he needs a good run!" beamed her friend.

"Aren't you going to let him off his lead?"

"He's very friendly!"

Their eye contact was unbearably intense. I didn't dare let him run free yet, I said. But if I let go of the lead perhaps I would become invisible again. Most likely the effects of the dog wear off over time. Luckily I was pushing a pram with the other hand and my son was able to get me out of danger by crying.

The Dog People of Clissold Park have been growing in number since the end of the summer. Now they are all over the park, hanging around in factions. Today the weather was bad and for some reason two of the Dog People factions had decided to face off on the footpath at the north east corner of the park. There were around 30 dogs in all, covered in mud, racing around happily. But the Dog People didn't look happy. They all just stared off into the mid-distance at the other Dog People faction as if to say "they don't know ANYTHING about dogs". Now and then someone would chat, probably about dog biscuits or flea powder. Then they'd carry on staring.